Red
by Kittyclaw
Summary: Oneshot, UxY. Ulrich stood a little straighter, trying to spot his blob of red among so many others. It was difficult, with the only part of the kids visible being their matching caps. "This must be what it's like for penguins." Sequel to "Yellow."


**The last instalment of my color trilogy, based on my own choices of G, red, and earings. Sequel to "Blue" and "Yellow." Enjoy!**

"It's kind of nice to be back here, huh Ulrich?" Yumi asked, walking side-by-side with Ulrich as they exited the school's small auditorium, filtering out along with the other parents into Kadic's courtyard.

"It is," Ulrich said, looking around at a campus that hadn't changed much in the twenty something years he'd been away from it. "But we're not here for the school, are we?" Yumi laughed, and then poked her husband in the chest.

"I'm allowed to be nostalgic if I want," she informed him. "But you're right. We're here for Michele, not us."

"And if we don't hurry, we're going to miss her."

Picking up their pace a little, Yumi and Ulrich followed the rest of the parents as they circled around to the front of the school, where the students would come out after one last walk through the school's halls.

"I can't decide if this part of graduation was my favorite part or not," Yumi said. "Although, it was nice to get one last look at the school." Ulrich, who had made the same trek the year after Yumi, shrugged.

"I don't know," he said. "It's nice, but all I remember is that it meant we took longer to get away from here." Yumi laughed again, rolling her eyes.

"You sound like Odd," she said. Ulrich grinned.

"Yeah. It was probably him who said that to me."

"Oh, look!" Yumi said suddenly, pointing over the crowd. "They're coming out!" As Yumi spoke, the doors opened, letting the latest of Kadic's student generations out and into the world.

A sea of red robes met Ulrich's gaze as he looked out over the gathering of students, the collective proof of Kadic's educational success illustrated over and over again by every dark red robe and graduation cap worn by each and every one of the hundred or so Kadic academy graduates. Yumi hung on Ulrich's arm as he led the way through the mass of joyful parents and relatives surging towards the throng of equally ecstatic and freshly liberated teenagers.

Out of the corner of his eye, Ulrich could see Odd congratulating his kids, the twin brother and sister pair waving their diploma covers about wildly in front of a father who had jokingly told them time and again that after inheriting his genes, they had no chance of getting past the eighth grade. His wife, Emily, was hugging her children over and over, and Ulrich could tell all the way from here that she was informing them that it had been _her_ brains that they'd inherited.

"Ulrich, look," Yumi said, directing her husband's attention elsewhere. He grinned when he spotted the couple lavishing their son with praise.

"Told you he would graduate early," Ulrich said.

"I don't think anyone doubted you," Yumi answered. "He's probably got an IQ of two hundred and fifty."

"He" happened to be the son of Jeremy, who was thumping the boy heartily on the back, and Aelita, who was attempting to both hug him and wipe dirt from his cheek. With his dad's hair and his mother's eyes, the boy had also seemingly inherited both of his parents' IQ levels, and he'd been able to skip a few grades to graduate alongside the older offspring of his parents' friends.

"Now, where's ours?" Ulrich asked, standing a little straighter and scanning the crowd, trying to spot his blob of red among so many others. It was difficult, with the only part of the kids that was truly visible being their matching caps. "This must be what it's like for penguins," Ulrich muttered.

"Mom, Dad!"

Turning his head, Ulrich spotted a girl pushing her way through the crowd towards him. She was beaming up at him from a face framed with thick waves of brown curls.

"Michele!" Yumi cried, releasing Ulrich and hurrying over to scoop her daughter into a tight hug. "Oh honey, we're so proud of you!"

"Thanks mom," Michele said, laughing as Yumi nabbed her diploma so that she could look it over. She then posed obligingly for a few photos, during which Yumi handed the camera over to Ulrich so she could stand with her daughter. Once Yumi was satisfied that the moment was sufficiently captured on film she took the camera back, finally allowing access to his daughter.

"Congratulations, Michele," Ulrich said, grinning as she captured him in a crushing hug.

"Thanks," she said, still beaming wildly. Bouncing back, she handed her diploma to Ulrich to see. "Awesome, huh?" she asked, while brushing her hair distractedly behind her ears. Ulrich smiled when he noticed the earrings she was wearing—light blue and bright yellow. The school had said that all students were to dress formally under their robes, in no colors other than black and white. While she had gone with a simple white dress, Michele had been unable to refrain from adding quite a few pieces of blue and yellow jewelry to the ensemble. Her last act of academic defiance she'd called it.

Ulrich, for his part, hadn't minded in the least. There was nothing wrong with pushing the boundaries a little and, as he'd explained to Yumi earlier that day, it was better than what Odd's son wanted to do. He'd attempted to sneak an entire gorilla suit under his robe—something his father had found hysterical. His mother, not so much.

"Yeah Michele," Ulrich said, handing the diploma back. "It's pretty awesome." Michele grinned, her nose wrinkling cutely as she tried not to laugh at her father's attempt at teenage jargon.

"Now what are we going to do?" she asked, looking back and forth between her parents.

"Well," Ulrich said, tossing one arm around Michele's shoulders, and then the other around Yumi's. "How about your parents take you out to a nice, celebratory dinner?"

"Okay!" Michele said, her grin widening. Yumi grinned too, giving Ulrich a sly look.

"Only if the gentleman foots the bill." Ulrich rolled his eyes good naturedly as Yumi and Michele giggled.

"Yeah, yeah," he said, directing the two women towards the parking lot. "Dad will pay for dinner."

Besides, he thought, as he hugged the two most important people in his life closer, after all that they'd brought into his life, it was the least he could do.


End file.
